Here I?m with the children from the Jewish nursery school in Pazardzhik. I?m sitting on the ground and am the first on the left. The year was probably 1928 or 1929. There's neither an inscription on the back of the photo nor a stamp of a photo shop. I can?t remember the names of the other children but I remember the name of the teacher who is sitting among the children in the middle. Her name was Giveret [?Miss? in Hebrew] Lillo. The photo was taken on the school campus.
My parents sent me to the Jewish kindergarten even though my other brothers could have looked after me and they had the financial means to hire a governess.
The Jews in Pazardzhik had taken on a girl who knew Hebrew; I don't know where she had learned it. They had also rented a room in an old house. That was the place where the parents left their children to attend kindergarten so that the kids could be prepared for school. There we were taught some songs, some customs, some plays, like what they do now in the kindergartens, and some poems. And afterwards the children didn't consider school as a burden but as a continuation of the kindergarten.
Sofi Danon-Moshe with the children from the Jewish nursery school
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.
Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC".
Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).